Apple Gives $100 Store Credit To iPhone Customers

MooRogue writes "In an open letter to all iPhone customers, Steve Jobs responds to hundreds of emails from upset iPhone customers. Apple will be giving early adopters who are not receiving rebates or any other consideration $100 store credit at the Apple store. Details will be posted on the Apple website next week"

Comments

How to make a fanatic fan

[chriss]

1. Sell him something
2. Kick him in the balls
3. Wait till he complains and declares to hate you
4. Give him a band aid and a lollipop
5. He now loves the big brother again

I'm myself bordering the state of Apple fan boy, but this is scary. People crying fool yesterday now praise the company for being responsive. I'm not into conspiracy theories, but if Apple had had this planed, this would be pure genius. Lowering the price and then getting the people who payed more to cheer you. Just scary how perfectly they play their crowd.

I don't think this was planed. But I think Apple knows that we now live in an attention society and that people highly regard companies who admit errors and change. In fact people overvalue this since they do not expect it (yet. Microsoft will obviously copy it someday). They did it with "greener Apple", they do it again with credits for iPhones which will generate more money for them due to people buying stuff in the Apple store.

Re:Why not $200 store credit?

[dr00g911]

I'm with you on this one.

I bought two: an 8gb for myself and a 4gb for the wife, and we stood in line on opening day.

I honestly believe that the phones were worth every penny that we paid for both of them ($499/$599 retail).

For the record, my wife let her phone slip while she was walking out of her parking garage, and smacked it at the pavement while flailing to catch it. The sleep/wake button got jammed inside the buckled aluminum, and we had to bring the phone in for service.

Apple took the phone back, offered us a loaner ($25ish, IIRC... we didn't take it), and had a *brand*new*phone* shipped to us the very next morning. Priority overnight Fedex, 7:45am, I might add. For a phone that my wife admitted to beating up and was ready to pay for repairs.

So, that was two weeks ago, now Apple offers us $100 apiece for being early adopters.

You just don't get that kind of service in the technology industry anywhere else these days that I've experienced.

I mean, I bought a Vista OEM copy and an nVidia "Vista Ready" mobo on launch day (it's my job to know how to support *everything*, turd or not). You don't see MS or nVidia offering to make things right because little things like on-board sound and networking don't function...at all...nVidia passes the buck to MS, and MS passes the buck to nVidia, and eight months later now, I still have to use USB dongles on that particular mobo for sound and ethernet. And neither of those companies have any intention of making things right. And that's just driver issues. Let's not even get into Vista quality (utter pile of refuse, kthanxbye). No rebate, no exchange for something that actually functions as described. Not even an option to downgrade to XP from MS.

Anyhow, I contrast that experience with something like buying my iPhone, Macbook Pro or any of the dozens of other Apple products I've purchased over the years and there's just no comparison. The iPhone is a *killer* product, and they're going to gain a ton more goodwill out of a gesture that they didn't have to make.

Long story short, the wife is now an absolutely fanatical Apple supporter just from these experiences.

Blogging Whiners are whining because they paid a premium to be an early adopter? Well, duh. I had no illusions that it wouldn't be substantially cheaper by EU launch or the holidays.

Reminds me of a T-shirt I saw recently.

--d